Quick update - radiation therapy

It's been a crazy few weeks! With great friends and a fabulous babysitter coming in after my family left, we have survived.  I did a little kid lifting today.  not much but I just had to get back in the saddle.  It felt great to just get my little and put them where I wanted instead of waiting for someone else.  Still sore so I don't expect I will go overboard at this point and I don't enjoy the swelling and icepacks after a long day. 

Met with the Radiation Oncologist on Friday and we will start radiation therapy on the 12th.  Same week school starts.  We like to start school this way.  Last year it was the littles joining our family so why not do something equally as crazy this year although not even close to the same fun. I have not exactly signed on the dotted line of the study but probably will thus I will either be randomized to a 3 week more potent course of radiation or the standard 6 week course. So that will determine when I am done with treatments. We have no idea what the effects of the radiation will be like on me.

 Side note:  All of you that have so sweetly offered to bring us food, this is when we expect to need some relief and help (hope to get one of those online sign up things soon)

 The side effects generally seem to be anything from hardly nothing (like a little tired)  to pretty darn serious (like burns and very fatigued)  as reported from friends and family that I know that have had it.  As I told my mom, I am the only me, so who knows what it will be for me.  I know I am going to be asking everyone to pray for minimal side effects with both the radiation and hormone therapy.  I started the Tamoxifen a few weeks ago and besides feeling more overwhelmed and emotional, I haven't noticed much....not that I wouldn't feel overwhelmed and emotional anyway with all of the chaos going on. :) 

We are going to head north for a quick before school starts and because Pat needs a big ol' break vacation and I cannot wait.  Pat has been on 24/7 super duty for weeks now and I look forward to seeing him relax and get out on the lake and refresh.  He so deserves it. 

Thank you again and again for all the prayers, cards, encouragement and support you have given me over the last few weeks.  We are blessed, tired, but very blessed. :)

It's all Good.

We are one week post surgery and besides the total torture of not lifting my littles ( I still have another week to go), it's all good.  Anesthesia kicked my tush as usual and I was very sick for the remainder of the surgery day but once all of it was gone out of my system, I felt pretty good.  My underarm incision bugs me the most and it's all sore but to be expected.  I didn't take any pain meds but advil so the pain has been very minimal. So thankful. AND you cannot rest with 3 kids, enough said.

I had my post op visit with final pathology report today and all margins and lymph nodes are clear microscopically for metastasis. We are so grateful that we have had the best results possible for the situation.  I have an appointment with the radiation oncologist next week to get the radiation scheduled.  I am a candidate for a research study that gives a 3 week or 5 week radiation course so we will investigate that further because, well, we do like to help out those UK researchers (wink) so we can make it a top 20 hospital. Ideally, I would like to start radiation as soon as school starts back for Nick so we have one less child to worry about as far as childcare and schedules. I don't think it will be a problem but we shall see. While I did not expect them to recommend it, I was still relieved that we have the no Chemo affirmation because that really would have been a scheduling nightmare with all the littles' therapies and appts.  I will also start Tamoxifen therapy which is an Estrogen suppressor therapy. Because my cancer type is extremely estrogen hungry , if you suppress the estrogen, in theory, you will stop the cells from replicating....yes, please.  So that treatment is 5 years. So, all in all, best case scenario for a cancer patient. My favorite part of this journey is that I am considered "young" , as an older mom of young children, and I feel my age often after a long day,  the fact that they keep saying that I am so "young" for this cancer, and "young" this and "young" that has been good for the soul. ha!

My family has been here since the day before surgery.  We think this is quite possibly the longest time we have all been together in years. (we had just been with them for almost 2 weeks in TX  for Kazapalooza)  They all leave tomorrow, they are all so happy. ;)  I cannot tell you how organized my house is....everyone's nervous energy was to my benefit for sure. Much thanks, love and gentle side hugs go out to my Mom, Dad, Sister, Niece and Nephew (who will especially not miss screeching one year olds and Drama Llama Lou 2 year olds).  I will probably not miss all the chaos but I will definitely miss having them close by. Thank you family from all of us!

Thanks also to all of you who have sent cards and gift cards, FB well wishes, and texts.  It's overwhelming and just plain sweet to get so much love.  I feel so blessed to know and love so many great people all over the country and here in our town.  God is faithful.  We are being sustained and encouraged by God's love and strength and from all the care, concern, and unsweet tea that is lavished upon us daily from all of you.  Love and gentle side hugs! It's all good. Praise God!

Can I trust God for Anything in Everything?

8 or so years ago when we decided to leave our fertility up to God and “just adopt”, we could have never ever ever in a million years known what kind of journey we had ahead of us.  We recently watched our wedding video at my parent’s house and I sat there and wondered, wow, what a life we’ve had in 10 years so far…..for better , worse, sickness, health….I think that we already covered it all in just 10 years, what in the world will the next 40 bring?

Trusting God …….that seems to be the theme of it all.  Hopping on a plane 6 ½ years ago to a land we had only recently discovered to adopt a child, boy?, girl?, age negotiable? Siblings?  We thought we would bring home an infant, we came home with a 3 year old. We heard God saying loudly in Kaz, take this 3 year old as your very own sweet son, Trust me.  So we did, and thru all the ups and many many downs, we have never doubted once that Nicholas Carmon was the son He chose for us to parent.  But, trust has not come easy because the journey hasn’t been easy. We have felt helpless, confused, and frustrated but mixed in the middle is a knowing that God has a plan, so trust springs forth as we have learned more of who He is thru the process of parenting a child who lacks trust. Somehow in grace, we see more of God because we see how He can love us so much even when we struggle to trust Him.  It is always amazing to me the parallels in the Christian life and adoption.  We see the grace, the unconditional determination and love of a Father for his children; children that are angry, lash out, scream and continually push away. He never falters (we do, but He doesn’t) and somehow that gives us hope and boosts our trust in Him, because He gets it, He gets parenting kids that hurt, and don’t believe, and underneath it all, just feel lost. So thankful for this insight and thankful that we chose to Trust His ways and not ours.

When our Ecuador adoption process stalled completely and we were contemplating walking away, again, there was the question of Trusting in anything.  We thought we had gone the correct course, we paid lots of hard earned money, and now we were feeling led out of the process.  How could this be?, why would God let us lose so much money?  We kept hearing, I will provide, it’s all mine anyway, I have a plan, Trust me with this for now.  So we did, we walked away. Soon after, timing (or rather God’s timing) was finally right for us to take the state classes for foster/adoption thru the state and we decided to risk our hearts and our efforts on the unknown once again.  So we “said’ that we want older children, preferably non-Caucasian and adopt only status.  We didn’t want to foster and risk our hearts THAT much.  Yes, as you know, that worked out exactly how we expected, 2 babies as white as can be and foster status with reunification with parent as the goal still. Again, we heard Do your REALLY trust me with Anything? Do you really? We had to say yes, we had to. Parenting these littles has been nothing short of watching miracles. They have changed so much from 10 months ago, so much that I hardly remember the early days. God is teaching us to trust Him daily for this particular journey. The future is unsure, we do not know anything at this point except that they are a part of our family today and this unsure status has been equally hard.  Trusting has been hard for me especially. Because of Nick’s trust issues, I fear the same will happen to the littles if they are jostled back and forth in an insecure environment. How can going back to their biomom be the best mentally for them, how? He says to me daily, sometimes hourly, trust me, I got this too and I love them more than you can imagine.  So, we feebly but maybe a bit more confidently trust again.  I read somewhere that in our faith journey this is called imperfect progress.

I’d say ‘not so controlled’ Chaos would describe the last few months for us.  End of school usual stuff combined with a particularly hard cycle of behavior for Nick, court reviews for biomom, teething, therapies non-stop, and looming Kazapalooza crunch time were all creating one of those times where you think you just might crack if one more thing is added. Yet, in the midst, we were studying in BSF the book of Genesis where the great patriarchs of our faith were tested. They were asked to build a boat without ever having seen water, to GO without knowing where, to risk losing a promised child, to forgive themselves and others even when they failed, and to trust in Him and not their seemingly insurmountable and unjust circumstances. Would you call it coincidence that we were studying this now, right in the midst of our chaos? How could we? God provides exactly what we need to be able to proceed in the journey he has called us to. So at each breaking point, it seemed we always had a hope builder, a glimpse of God’s goodness, a shared journey with like-minded friends, a perfectly timed sermon and on and on. God was good to show himself to us when we most needed Him. 

So……. it somehow was not a shock and not earth shattering when the nurse called about 5 weeks ago and said your biopsy results are not good, I’m sorry but you have breast cancer. I would say my first response after I hung up the phone in my head was really? Now God, really?  I think I would have crumbled to the floor at that point had God not known that right then, immediately, I just needed a sign that He was in control, and He provided.  Not five seconds after I hung up the phone, Pat texted me and said “Any news on your test results.  I immediately texted him back and said “How did you know? It’s not benign.” And somehow in that moment, my confidence in the God who made me and has plans for me,  the creator of all things grew leaps and bounds and if He can orchestrate a simple timely text at the precise minute that I hang up to show me that He’s got it. He’s with me, and He’s in control….then what else can I do but Trust Him with anything in everything that has to do with this new journey.   We certainly do not celebrate this journey with dancing and tambourines (those Israelites got it going on!) but we ARE able to see God in the journey, we have joy in the everyday things in our life and feel thankful and blessed.... but honestly, there is some frustration at the timing and fear of the unknown creeps up when you least expect it. We truly have learned (because God had already prepared us in the last 6 years) that he gives each day what we need and we will be thankful for the good days as well as the not so good days because they are what make us who we are and they are what reflect God’s sovereignty and goodness in our lives.  Nothing separates us from his love, nothing. Not our hardships, not our failures, not our lack of faith and trust, not our shaking our fist at him, not our anger, nothing but unbelief can separate…..and we BELIEVE that He has a plan, he has a purpose in all of this and we feel his love, and his presence in so many tangible ways. 

 As we have told people over the last few weeks, many of you (family and friends) have been His tangible love.  We are so thankful and so grateful.  From my Kazapalooza teammates who having stressful lives of their own, without hesitation saying  "stop now, give us your stuff to handle", to filing and cleaning up months and cough, cough years of paper messes and helping me organize before treatments, to special girlfriend dates from longtime friends, to prayers and more prayers, and finally our families who pray and  have been willing to drop everything to help us out during surgery and recovery.  God has showed up in the care of the kids by giving us some medical/therapy help with Nick that has provided relief and more good days than bad and the littles have been just recently spoiled and loved on by my parents and sister and family so they were not “strangers” when they arrived this weekend and their comfort level is more secure. 

As far as my cancer, it’s early, first stage, found in a routine/yearly mammogram (all you over 40’s chickas, get it done!!). My surgeon is confident that a lumpectomy and routine radiation will be the best course of treatment for now.  Surgery is tomorrow/Monday and we will know more once the after surgery pathology report is finished.  I’m ready to get it over with and ready to have a plan….that is the control freak sneaking out of me, I know, you would think I would have learned by now.  But, whatever the future holds, I know who holds it, and who has my best interest and my best possible plan in his hands. So, I’m good, I really am.  Kazapalooza is over and it was really wonderful. Our support system is showing up in spades and overwhelming us with love. The big kid and littles are doing well which is an answer to prayer already and I have my awesome husband by my side, he has been nothing short of perfectly wonderful thru this whole thing…….he should get some kind of purple heart or something for the last 10 years.  Love him so much.  So, what more could a girl ask for besides a little cancer weight loss, come on, a girl can dream, cant she?…..and a good night’s sleep, they tell me that’s what surgery is good for….so there you go, my life in one really long blog post. I wasn’t sure I was going to put it out there on the web but then, I don’t feel like it’s my story to protect, I feel like it’s my story to testify….to testify of God’s existence, His goodness, His mercy and His unfailing love for me.  I write this as a journal of sorts for me but also to let the rest of you in on what God is doing and is going to do. How can I not share?

As far as prayer requests……

Please pray for Pat, Nick and the littles, for my family here taking care of us, and for the family that is not here but wanting to be. It’s never easy to hear the word cancer in relation to a close family member, it’s happened to me several times so I know. Pray for peace and comfort along with endurance and a sense of humor about all the chaos. Pray against fear, insecurity and worry especially for the kids as things will be a little off for the next few weeks since I cannot lift, wrestle, swing, etc.  Pray for Pat and the burden of being the husband, dad and provider in these coming weeks. Lots on his shoulders, Pray that he lays it at the feet of the one who can bear it for him.

Pray for my surgeon Dr. Wright and my Oncologist Dr. Remond.  Pray for best surgery outcome with minimal recovery and wisdom over the treatments.  Pray for all involved in the surgery to be of clear mind and thought, undistracted and on their best game. ;)

Pray for my healing and recovery.  Rest is hard for me, really hard.  Pray that the cancer is as we say in Ky, a one and done deal. Pray that treatment will be the best option for me and for the family. Pray for the fear that does occasionally creep in at night….you know that rest thing….and it mostly concerns the kids so pray that I will continue to daily trust that God knows them just as well as I do and pray that I will continue to surrender them to Him.

 

If you made it to the bottom, Many thanks to all of you for the love and support ahead of time.  If you know me well, you know I despise being the center of attention, hate it.  I could have done all of this without telling a soul (well probably Pat) but what I do know from getting older is that allowing people to serve you and love on you is God's way of using them and working thru them and I don't have a right to control  that or hinder it.....so I'll just be blessed by it and thank God for all of you.  Much Love!